Tuesday, July 04, 2006

RETROSPECTIVE TRAVEL BLOG

Sunday, 11th June
Right Foot and I, along with my sister, Middle Sized Bear and my brother in law, set off on our “Not too young & not too old” tour of Russia, the Baltic countries, Poland and the Czech Republic. Middle Sized Bear and Brother-in-Law (BIL) had not travelled overseas since their honeymoon in New Zealand in 1969 so were diving in the deep end.

After numerous adventures involving Singapore Airlines, Luftansa, incorrect boarding passes, wrong gate numbers, etc we arrived in Moscow 27 hours after leaving Melbourne. By this time we had gathered up 9 other not too young, not too old companions so we arrived en masse at our hotel in Moscow where the staff denied all knowledge of our bookings. This turned out to be the pattern for all our dealings with Russian bureaucracy. Processes are very unwieldy, time-consuming and mysterious.

Moscow itself is absolutely wonderful - fabulous streetscapes and buildings such as St Basil’s Cathedral, http://www.moscow-taxi.com/churches/st-basils-cathedral.html
the amazing Metro stations http://www.moscow-taxi.com/sightseeing/metro.html
wonderful scenery (seeing Swan Lake which inspired Tchaikovsky’s ballet, at night was absolutely magical).

Russians became accustomed to queueing for staple items in Soviet times. Now they queue in their thousands for many hours outside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour to view an extraordinary relic: John the Baptist’s right hand, the very hand that baptised Jesus Christ. We saw many such demonstrations of unquestioning faith throughout Russia. It seems there is nothing like years of oppression to strengthen the hold of religion. http://www.moscow-taxi.com/sightseeing/savior.html

Right Foot led me to a park and tried to convince me that it was Gorky Park. It wasn't, but was interesting all the same. The old-fashioned, run down amusements reminded me of Vietnam. My favourite was a ride for young children, similar to a little train but featuring toy tanks instead of railway carriages.

Contrary to expectations we ate well. Petite had predicted ‘meat stuffed with meat with a side serving of meat’ but we found lots of fresh fruit and vegetables including bananas, bananas, bananas! The beer was not bad and the wine was not good.
As an accompaniment to our dinner we were treated to the first of several corny, hokey folkloric performances, got up for the tourists. No local would be seen dead attending.

The yuckiest thing was the lat night entertainment, the horrible Moscow Circus with its outdated performing animal acts. It was surprising and depressing to see that this old hat style of circus is still around.

NEXT: Novgorod